The group of former Lakeshore municipalities that grew around Lakeshore Road (now Boulevard) are fascinating. Mimico, New Toronto, and Long Branch could be lost in the sea of neighbourhoods in Toronto, and yet they've managed to retain their individual identities in spite of the suburban onslaught that eventually engulfed Etobicoke in the 1950s. This is probably because they predate the suburban neighbourhoods in the north of the former borough by many years. Today, Long Branch is the western frontier of Toronto.

It's not a matter of common knowledge in Toronto that the majority of the the typical 1950s suburban communities that engulf the city were originally farming villages and hamlets, which were usually centred around crossroads, and had their own distinctive character as points of sparse rural settlement. Places like Scarborough, for example, were townships that consisted of such settlements, divided by numerous farm fields and dirt routes, and dotted with the occasional general store or tavern. I have previously devoted this column to writing about such places and New Toronto, Don Mills, and Agincourt. Today, I'd like to take a look at Brockton and Ellesmere, two former villages that the city and the postwar sprawl have claimed respectively.

This week, I was walking from Yonge and Dundas Square down Yonge Street and this was the first time that I came across the former site the William Reynolds Block, a.k.a. the Empress Hotel. In April 2010, the structure first lost one of its walls due to neglect. In February, it was badly damaged in a fire set by an arsonist and subsequently demolished. The loss of the historic building is an unfortunate reminder that architectural heritage is not as valued in Toronto as it should be. Along with the former Empress Hotel, there are a number of historic buildings in the city that are severely neglected, despite the fact that they are designed heritage properties or at least listed in the City of Toronto Heritage Inventory. Let's have a look at some of them.

I rely on subway to get to work and school at least 10 times a week, counting return trips. To people like me, who consider back and forth subway rides an established part of their daily routine, it's hard to imagine the enthusiasm that marked March 30, 1954 in the history of Toronto, when the 7.4 kilometer (4.6 mile) subway line opened between Eglinton and Union Stations. We've already featured a photo gallery spanning the first twenty odd years of the subway, so let's take a look back at that day, along with the politics of local transportation that preceded it.

Based on my conversations with friends and co-workers, government-subsidized housing is a contentious subject among many Torontonians. On the one hand, there is the belief that this program is out of hand - already the largest state-sponsored housing project in North America, which is an outdated urban renewal model that falls easy prey to abuses and contributes to the "ghettoization" of urban and suburban neighbourhoods. On the other, the argument follows that there are not enough social services in the city and that providing a roof over the head of a socially and economically disadvantaged individual is hardly an end to his or her struggles - illustrated many times over in the columns of the Toronto Star's Joe Fiorito. Nonetheless, few would agree with the complete dismantling of public housing.

This Tuesday will mark International Women's Day, which will be followed by the annual march on Saturday. On March 24, a less known holiday will take place - Agnes Macphail Day. The City of Toronto web site states that the former mayor David Miller proclaimed this day in 2008 to commemorate Macphail's achievements as a the first female Member of Parliament and women's rights activist. She is one of the numerous Toronto women of distinction, some better known than others. So let us look back at a few of them. This list is not exhaustive, of course, and I attempted to include mostly historical figures, who seem the most interesting.